I am really excited to be part of this year’s Future Fires project as I have always been interested in performing arts and I have wanted to run my own community theatre project for a long time!
For my Future Fires project I wish to devise a drama performance which engages homeless 16 to 25 year olds from Manchester. I have chosen this age range because people often have misconceptions about homeless people and assume they are older. Also, when I was 17 some of my closest friends were made homeless when they left the care of social services and some of my family have experienced homelessness, so this is a community I feel a connection with. My project will consist of a taster workshops, followed by a series of devising rehearsals. I hope to encourage the participants to form a company and give a performance in winter 2010.
In June 2009 I graduated from the University of Salford with a BA Performing Arts. Studying for this degree gave me invaluable experience of directing plays and facilitating workshops. I also had the opportunity to tour as a performer in our annual professional pantomime. Since graduating I have worked as an assistant direction and stage manager with fringe company BadCheck productions and co-founded the theatre company Poison Apple, of which I am the artistic director. Future Fires is the first large-scale project I have managed alone. I feel confident that, with the support of Contact, I can do it and I am excited about the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Contact’s Future Fires programme, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, is empowering and enabling young and emerging artists from across Greater Manchester to design, plan and deliver their own community arts outreach projects.
Over the course of a year, the programme is providing these individuals, the Future Fires, with tailored training, mentoring, support and seed funding to enable them to develop a peer-led creative arts project in their chosen community.
The Future Fires will be showcasing their work in November.
FUTURE FIRES 2011 RECRUITMENT
If you’re 18-30, have experience of creative projects, are interested in working with a specific community, and think you are ready to lead a project yourself then the Future Fires programme could be your chance to do just that.
If you are interested in being one of the Future Fires in 2011 then contact Neil on 0161 274 0651 or email neilalexander@contact-theatre.org for more info. The details of the recruitment process for next year’s Future Fires will be announced in late November.
